Buffy Gravlax - not good.

Yukon Mike

Yukon Mike

Well-known member
This one was a fail. It looked gross, and tasted gross.

Gravlax info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax

For you fishermen out there gravlax is another great way to make use of fish without freezing it. A basic recipe is 1/3 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup Kosher salt, fresh dill and black pepper. I made one batch with a splash if gin on the fish and it was pretty good. I forgot a piece of sockeye in the fridge this fall for 7 nor 8 days in the gravlax brine and it was fine which tells me its not a real aggressive brine. Be sure to rinse the brine off the fish before you eat it though, its pretty salty.

There was one method I found on youtube where the guy used beets to dye the fish with the brine to get this tequila sunrise effect going on. I tried it on a Rainbow trout fillet and it totally worked. Looked fancy, tasted the same as regular. He chopped up fresh beets, I used the juice from a can of beets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh1abxW8NqM

Anyone else got a good lax recipe?
 
Wonder how this would work with mackerel?
Don't catch much salmon in these parts.....
 
Are you saying Gravlax with fish isn't good or you seriously tried it with Buffy? I really like Gravlax with salmon but there is no way I'd do it with meat. My recipe for Gravlax is 50-50 salt and sugar. Put salmon fillet skin side down on plastic wrap and cover thickly with the salt/sugar mixture. Lay a bunch of fresh dill on top of the salt/sugar and cover/wrap tightly with the plastic wrap and refrigerate. You can try it in as little as 8 hours but it's better a day or so later. If you let it go a week it will turn into the consistancy of gummy bears. Sliced thin on crackers with a bit of sour cream/mayo or cream cheese is great - a dab of caviar on top is terrific.
 
No I tried it with Buffy breasts Pete. I like the recipe I have for fish fillets and wondered what it would be like with duck breast. Now I know.

Mike
 
Reminds me of the time I swore I could make Merganser taste good, by brining in apple cider and soy and then cold smoking. My smoker smelled like a full minnow bucket left in the sun for 2 days and then smoked. Yuk
 
My uncle has a killer recipe for buffy breasts
half a bottle of red wine
clove of garlic
2 bricks
After marinading for a day or so you throw the buffy breasts out and eat the bricks, according to him they're much tastier than buffy breasts.
 
I'm curious--you guys must shoot other buffleheads (butterballs on the Sho') than I ever did. My Grandmother roasted them just like bluebills, stuffed, and they were mild with only a slight liver taste and since I dote on liver, no big deal. We've skinned 'em in the blind and pan fried with a dab of butter
on the Mr. Heater and they weren't corn fed mallards but they were edible.
 
Wonder how this would work with mackerel?
Don't catch much salmon in these parts.....

Carl, I think your mackerel are different than ours, but brined and smoked Atlantic mackerel is excellent--maybe my favorite smoked fish. I'd take it over smoked salmon.

Given that mackerel can be pretty fishy, I wouldn't think gravlax would be the best treatment.
Click to expand...
 
I guess you're right Mike, now you know. Nothing wrong with being adventurous. otherwise we wouldn't ever discover new stuff. Thinking about it I wonder how pickled duck would taste.
 
Carl,

I believe the brine treatment on mackeral would be a mistake...I wasted a lot of snapper, wahoo, kings, and random other fish thinking that a brine soak would be good...The best thing I have found on salt water fish is just plain milk or to make them slightly sweet buy you a small carton of half and half, soak overnight barely covering the fish...

Mike,
I feel a possibility of sipping the gin and toss the fish out. :)

Regards,
Kristan
 
Bill, I was thinking the same thing. I make jerky with buffies and the kids eat it just as fast as I can get it out of the dehydrator. Same with mergies.
I also make stir fry with buffies and they are good.
Spoonies down here taste fine too, but other guys in other parts of the country say they taste like crap.
I think it just depends on where you are and what they are eating .
 
Carl,
You're certainly right about diet. Some of the best ducks I ever ate came off the flooded pasture of a friend--a steady diet of grass seeds and waste grain. On the other hand, a gigantic black duck I shot on Assateague Island years ago had been gorging on fish and when I opened him up I nearly gagged from the strong fermented fishy odor. Butterballs we have shot on inland lakes here in the Pacific Northwest are so mild we just skin 'em and pan fry 'em on the Mr Heater, as I think I mentioned. Big kid who had never hunted ducks before but ran 23-24 at trap all the time found out shooting buffleheads on the pass is a different thing. A buddy of my son's I took him One box of shells: one bufflehead. He was baffled. I wisely let him shoot so he wouldn't realize I had about as much luck with the speedsters. He was hungry so I did the honors with the skillet--he had never tasted ducks before--and he inhaled that little bird.
Bill
 
Bill, I have learned (the hard way) that unless those speeding buffies are really close, to just let them speed on along they merry way.
The decoying drakes are much easier to hit when they have them big pink brakes down and wings cupped as they land in the decoys!!!!!
99% of the time, hen buffies get a pass these days. I use them like live decoys.
 
Carl,

I even have used the drakes as decoys because they show up so well and splash around. Only when the big ducks aren't flying would I pick up a couple to take home without being skunked. Last time my son (now40) hunted with me a couple years ago,he sounded like a kid when he said Dad can I shoot the next one?
Because the mallards were few that day. It tickled me way down deep. Unlike ruddies, that dive and come up 80 yards away, buffies will flush when you standup, and you have a sporting shot before they get up to warp speed...
Bill
 
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